This is without a doubt the single strangest recording in my AMM archives. It basically is a huge jazz group that ranges from bop to fairly free with AMM buried somewhere in there. Prévost seem relatively content with to throw in some serious drumming along with his more percussive work, and Gare mixes his sound oriented sax with some more tonal lines. The first time I heard this I just assumed this was the duo AMM, which as they broke up in early 1972 made sense. But on doing some research and some close listening it does seem that Rowe and Cardew are present. Rowe seems to be laying out or perhaps just completely buried for nearly the first half, but then those scrabbling manipulated pickups of his can be heard coming and going depending on how much else is played. As for Cardew, well it’s impossible to really say, there does seem to be some of his dry bowing now and again, but impossible to say that it wasn’t the bass player or even another instrument. March 26th 1972, is right on the cusp of the disintegration of the quartet AMM; by the end of the month Rowe would have left the group with Cardew to follow shortly.

What is particularly bizarre about this recording is that if it is the quartet AMM it seems diametrically opposed to all that they espoused. The jazz that they had turned away from is the primary form here with continuous scatting from Jeanne Lee dominating this performance. Evan Parkers playing is a bit more sympathetic to AMM but here it leans toward tonal lines or fiery blasts, two poles this group swings wildly from as if they were a revue of the last decade of jazz. Rowe’s completely non-idiomatic guitar just sounds like noise on the tape and I suspect would be dismissed as such by your average jazz fan. Speaking of which your average jazz fan, one who could find nothing to like about AMM could get right behind this recording.

The recording begins with an intro in German that announces AMM “from London” and then the members of the Gunter Hampel group. The music comes right up with a bit of brushes on a ride cymbal and then some piano chords kick in. Melodic sax line over the top of this and then a bit of vamping background sax. A bit of discord between the saxes and then everybody is playing in this swirling miasma of sound. Very free jazz, nothing super out but only loosely connected. And then begins the vocalizations. Jeanne does either abstract vocalizations or scatting for pretty much the rest of the set with only a few short breaks. Lots of right up front drumming, a feature that runs through the bulk of the set it no matter how abstract it gets. The drums and the vocalizations are a constant and it really grounds the piece and keeps it from exploring new territory. Trumpet bleats come and go, some odd squiggles in the background, probably from Gare. Around thirteen minutes in things mellow way out, with the drumming at its most sedate, long vocalizations from Jeanne, and drawn out tones on the horns. But as is always the case in free jazz the mellow parts just serve to emphasize the active parts and it picks right back up with wailing sax, maddening drums and vocal wailing. This continues apace for some time, leading to a section with some real upfront scatting. Then another drop out, with just some cymbal work, low volume snare rolls (Prevost?), sax squeaks (Gare?) and a splattering of piano, under the scatting.

Finally she drops out and it is just piano and very quiet trombone. Some bass plucking comes into this, almost a solo with scattered drums and a almost mechanical sound very quiet. Some electronic-ish sounding squiggles, the first obvious sign that Rowe is actually present. Then the scatting comes back up. The electronic scrabbling becomes a bit more aggressive, piano now being constantly played, though fairly low in the mix, Gare style abstract sax-work also fairly quiet. After this more down-tempo, almost AMM-ish interlude things explode again. Off the hook trombone, the scatting fast and furious, piano chords being pounded out, a drum “solo” level freakout, scrabbling on the guitar a total miasma of sound. Very dense now, the vocals drop out and there is some serious sax work. recognizable as Parker. Then as the vocals come back in, everything drops out but piano tinkling and a low plaintive horn. A lazy baseline drifts through, a bit of scrabbling guitar. One sax line comes in, then goes, then another and so on. Runs on the piano, some skronks and squeaks, the scatting now right up front and rather guttural. The energy isn’t so high but everyone seems to be coming back in for one last go around as the piece is in it’s final minutes. The track then ends with just as honking horn as Jeanne gives us a “Thank you very much”. Then applause and one last bit of sax probably from Parker.

This recording really raises far more questions then I have answers for. It could be that at this festival the organizers threw all these people together in the end for a “large group” and they all played along. Perhaps in the end this quote from John Tilbury is what we have to be satisfied by:“Sometimes, when other people play with us, and because it’s a little bit unfamiliar to them, they’ll do something, and I think, ‘Well, what do you do when somebody does something that you don’t like?’ You can’t go up to them and say, ‘Don’t play that!’ You have to somehow take them by the hand and lead them somewhere else - but then why should you even do that? Maybe they don’t like what you’re doing, so who am I to judge? That’s not just a musical question, that’s also an ethical question.”-John Tilbury (3)

30 January 2009

Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on the Holocaust Remembrance (A/RES/60/7, 1 November 2005)

The General Assembly…

…Reaffirming that the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities, will forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice,

1. Resolves that the United Nations will designate 27 January as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust;

2. Urges Member States to develop educational programmes that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide, and in this context commends the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research;

3. Rejects any denial of the Holocaust as an historical event, either in full or part;

4. Commends those States which have actively engaged in preserving those sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration camps, forced labour camps and prisons during the Holocaust;

5. Condemns without reserve all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, wherever they occur;

6. Requests the Secretary-General to establish a programme of outreach on the subject of the "Holocaust and the United Nations" as well as measures to mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education, in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide; to report to the General Assembly on the establishment of this programme within six months from the date of the adoption of the present resolution; and to report thereafter on the implementation of the programme at its sixty-third session.

John Zorn’s Kristallnacht

Review by Joslyn Layne

This release documents an intense musical representation of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, a coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich that occurred on November 9, 1938, during which Nazis, SS members, and Hitler youth broke into Jewish homes and businesses, assaulting the people and their property. The official German report tallied 7,500 businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned (with 177 totally destroyed), and 91 Jews killed. John Zorn has created a musical work that powerfully represents the different stages of this historical event. "Shtetl (Ghetto Life)" is beautiful yet apprehensive klezmer, interspersed with sound bites of German rallies and speeches that become more frequent, increasingly crowding the life from the music. This segues into "Never Again," which, Zorn warns in the liner notes, "contains high frequency extremes at the limits of human hearing and beyond, which may cause nausea, headaches and ringing in the ears." While nearly unbearable, it is a fitting sound representation of Kristallnacht, as thousands of layers of shattering glass assault the ears. "Never Again" is both effective and affecting, if you can listen. This onslaught is followed by the loud silence and emptiness of "Gahelet (Embers)," a walk through the immediate aftermath of wind, darkness, and destruction. Alley echoes are heard as sound is overwhelmed by a dread and horror beyond expressing, and no words can contain what might begin to form in the midst of shock. This is a heavy silence. Strings have gone haggard on the next composition, and from this point the album becomes less literal and explicit, moving away from poignancy and focus into more chaos. Zorn's forceful undertaking is realized through the expert and passionate musicianship of violinist Mark Feldman guitarist Marc Ribot, keyboardist Anthony Coleman, bassist Mark Dresser and percussionist William Winant, as well as guest trumpeter Frank London and clarinetist David Krakauer

John Zorn – Kristallnacht –Tzadik 7301

FrankLondon

Trumpet

David Krakauer

Clarinet,BassClarinet

Mark Feldman

Violin

Marc Ribot

Guitar

Anthony Coleman

Keyboards

Mark Dresser

Bass

William Winant

Percussion

Recorded in 1992 november 9 and 10

1 Shtetl (ghetto life) 5:55

2 Never Again11:46

This astonishing record isn’t an OOP so I’ve posted only the first two tracks:

the introductory Shtetl and the unbearable and terrific Never Again, this last is to me one of Zorn’s highest achievement.

Steve Lacy's Sax Steve Lacy, the Knitting Factory, 47 East Houston Street, at Mulberry Street, Manhattan, (212) 219-3055. The soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy is to perform in two settings. Tomorrow at 9 P.M., he joins Samm Bennett on percussion and Tom Cora on cello as part of Third Person, a continuing series of collaborations. Tickets are $10.

Excerpt from: Point of Departure an online music journalIssue 20 - December 2008 - What's New?: The PoD Roundtable

…In teaching and clinics, he spoke fairly negatively about the kind of free improvisation that doesn’t have clearly stated, shared constraints on form or material. He talked about free playing autobiographically as a period of research in the past that was of its time (mid- to late 1960s, Italy and Argentina, The Forest and the Zoo) and yielded some useful results, but was over and done with. He explained that it was useful in that it helped him try out material, weed out unwanted things, and it led to his own much more structured compositions with guided improvisation. He seemed to have very strong guidelines in mind about improvisation, even ostensibly free, open-ended improvisation. When I played in his Precipitation Suite with him and the Boston-based Jazz Composers Alliance he was very definite about what he wanted me to do in an improvised duet, and gave similar instructions for larger group improvisations. And the few other times I got to perform with him, we played 12-bar blues (“Misterioso”, or “Baghdad Blues” with a short, conducted, programmatic group sound improvisation).These glimpses of working with Steve matched stories I heard from Lee Konitz about their playing “free” together, and about his interactions with Third Person (Tom Cora and Samm Bennett) and perhaps ROVA. Steve seemed to prefer working with his own material, or with pretty strictly controlled structures for improvisation, in his later years. When he performed in off-campus clubs or galleries with students while teaching in Boston, they played largely Monk tunes, sticking to the forms and changes, or (much less often) his songs. A brief bio excerpt about Third PersonCora was also a member of the improvising trio Third Person, formed in 1990 as a live collaboration with percussionist Samm Bennett and a "third person" who changed from concert to concert. Two CDs of some of their performances were released, The Bends in 1991 (with "third persons" Don Byron, George Cartwright, Chris Cochrane, Nic Collins, Catherine Jauniaux, Myra Melford, Zeena Parkins, and Marc Ribot) and Luck Water in 1995 (with "third person" Kazutoki Umezu).

Translated from Italian Interview by Fabrizio Gilardino appeared on Musiche Year VI n. 1 (14) 1993

• What kind of group du You tink Third Person is?The answer is in the name. It sound almos like a slogan, and in some way it is one. The idea was born when Samm and me were doing a lot of concerts togheter, every time inviting a new “third person”. So wu found the name of the band about after two years of plyin that way.We played two times with George Lewis, teo eith Butch Morris,, once with George Cartwright, and finally we decided that it was a very nice way of playin,We were searching for a band’s name and naturally thought to “Third Person . I think it’s a good one in itself and almost describes well what we are doing.• What’s the third person role, playin’ with You’The thids persons are our victims. It greatly depends on who is the third person: some people have a stronger musical personality than others…What Tom and me are playin isnt’ exactly what You would expect from in a totally improvised musical situation, expecially the use we made of some rhythms and the song-form.

I can add that from this magical encounter sorted out an astonishing music, almost Lacy’s music but with the addiction of two marvellous musicians and free improvisers. As sometimes happens with such musical minds it seems they have played togheter for years since the trio is playin for a common goal: musical beauty.

Note that in the note pad the date enclosed to the files the date is wrong,Since I’ve taken this one from DIME someone invererted month with day,As You Well know in English dating is Y/M/D so here is the correct one confirmed by the New York Times article datet.

Here is (part?) of the most important and exciting concert of the 28th Saalfelden Jazz Festival in 2007. In this edition the Festival, really a musical marathon, consisted of five concerts a day in four days at the end of august(23-26) 2007.

The Threadgill project with the Zooids and the Young Salzburg Filarmonic String Orchestra, worldy premiered here, took place in the final day on the main stage of the Festival.

The composition was ” Dedicated to Jazzfestival Saalfelden and Thomas Stöwsand”.

I think this is one of the most important efforts in Threadgill’s last years compositions and has been. I think, a great bet and a risky piece of music. Two were perhaps the most risky musical facts; first the integration of jazz improvisationals methods with the writing in an almost classical contemporary way, on the other, no less important, hand the difficulty of playin’ Threadgill’s music for a Young Austrian String Orch. with probably few rehalsals and the total lack of previous ensemble playin’.

I must say that Mr Threadgill has win his bet and has totally overcome every possible obstacle. He managed to do this in the most simple, probably the only, possible level. He wrote a piece in which the string parts works sometimes as a counterpart, others had the first place and others too are a background and armonical-timbrical completion to his music. But in every moment he had clear that the SFSO isn’t the string section of the Dance Situation Band, and he had to use it another totally different way. The little rehearsal and the difficulty of playin such a music sometimes is little evident in SFSO but the scoring is excitin’ and the ZOOID ensemble and solos parts are among the best ever heard in the last years.

One thought came to my mind listening to this short (sic) recording. Threadgill as Ellington in his live Sacred Concerts and others should have felt the importance of the event so he, being a terrific musician and composer, and the whole ZOOID are here at their best.

Note: the term Zooid refers to an organism cellular able to independently stir inside another and points out the great flexibility of the formation, able to operate within an ample ghost of references, jazz and not.

Karl Berger, born March 30, 1935, is a six time winner of the Downbeat Critics Poll as a jazz soloist, recipient of numerous Composition Awards ( commissions by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, European Radio and Television: WDR, NDR, SWF, Radio France, Rai Italy. SWF-Prize 1994 ). Professor of Composition, Artist-in-Residence at universities, schools and festivals worldwide ; PhD in Music Esthetics.

Founder and director of the Creative Music Foundation, Inc. , dba The Creative Music Studio, a not-for-profit corporation, dedicated to the research of the power of music and sound and the elements common to all of the world’s music forms; and to educational presentations through workshops, concerts , recordings, with a growing network of artists and CMS members worldwide .

Special areas of interest: Improvisation; world musical communications in ensembles/orchestras of soloists through modular compositions/arrangements; Rhythmic Training ( the GaMaLaTaKi system ): timing/attention/expression; R+ D of the elements governing the universal power of sound and music with emphasis on the healing power of sound and music.

27 January 2009

The Instant Composers' Pool Orchestra has a combative friendship at its heart - the Dutch duo of pianist and composer Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink has been going strong for more than forty years. Through the decades, they've nurtured an ensemble of musicians that keeps playful improvisation and creative composition at its core.

At this Guelph Jazz Festival concert, the players' solos butt up against each other, Han Bennink goes running across the stage and Misha Mengelberg keeps it all together at the piano.

Randy Brecker is one of the foremost jazz trumpeters and he's especially renowned for the series of Brecker Brothers jazz-fusion recordings he made in the 1970s and 80s with his late saxophonist sibling, Michael Brecker.

Saxophonist Pat LaBarbera is now a Canadian jazz heavyweight based at Humber College in Toronto, but made his name in the '60s and '70s as a soloist in the bands of Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Louis Bellson and Elvin Jones.

Drummer Joe LaBarbera has a similarly rich resume, with the notable addition of a stint in the trio of the late pianist Bill Evans.

Together with pianist Brian Dickinson and bassist Neil Swainson, Brecker and the LaBarbera Brothers became a quintet for a fiery performance at The Rex in Toronto during the recent IAJE conference.

Venue: Roundhouse Community Centre, Vancouver, BCVancouver clarinetist extraordinaire François Houle is joined in his adopted city by two greats of the improv jazz scene, French pianist Benoît Delbecq and legendary English saxophonist Evan Parker.

They met in 2005 for an improv show in Montreal and immediately hit it off. They come together again at the 2008 Vancouver Jazz Festival's Innovation series, held at the Roundhouse Community Centre in Yaletown, Vancouver.

26 January 2009

Saxophonist Dave Liebman is probably best known for spending the 1970s playing on trumpeter Miles Davis' albums "On the Corner", "Big Fun", "Dark Magus" and "Get Up With It". He's also toured and recorded with pianist Chick Corea.

Dave Liebman's solo career continues to flourish and, together with his former student - Canadian jazz saxophone icon Mike Murley - Liebman leads a quartet including bassist Jim Vivian and drummer Ian Froman in this dynamic set recorded at The Rex in Toronto during the 2008 I.A.J.E. conference.

25 January 2009

“The Unrepetant Ones began just for fun since I was talkin’ by phone with Guido (Mazzon)” (Mario Schiano).

After 17 years of parallel and crossed journeys in the world of jazz, largely documented by encyclopedias, reviews and "less or more" specialized handbooks (from 1966 Gruppo Romano Free Jazz to 1969 Gruppo Contemporaneo) they meet all togheter for the first time in Rome in an Italian Radio Studio (RAI) for a Live Concert as guests of A certain speech broadcast series. “I’ve found myself with people who express their feelings in such a particular way, so similar to my way of talking, to my thoughts. They always make me feel comfortable” (Renato Geremia). “I want to express my strong excitement since today, here, just after 20 years, perhaps something is going to happen. This Unrepetant Ones are fine musicians, and show very promising, they show they can be even better musicians and play genuine music” (Franco Pecori). Free jazz, Free Music “..in Europe musicians 45/50 years old go on playin’ this rather distinctive music, rather creative, quite free. I noticed that they aren’t so frustrated as we are” (Guido Mazzon). “I want to remind you that jazz music, in about 90 years of life, has covered the whole itinerary of the great western music, reaching even the Darmstad School. The Free Jazz, greatly berated, is the most advanced peak of the evolution of this music history. Before Free Jazz is nothing!!!” (Mario Schiano)“All that is solid melts into air”. That’s the reason why, in this recording made by this musicians for whom (since the ’60) the reference points are totally relative, they can use historical jazz shapes for their own musical ends. From the most classical blues inL’arte in questione, to the most contemporary one, the tense and biting free jazz of Feel better, running up and down through musical quotations, moods, fashions to personal and collective models of any jazz musician.From the unfielding practicisizin' of the “Innovative selfdistrucion” of jazz shapes (Mobil Oil advertisement dating to 1978) grows out the awareness (sometimes ironical Antenne Justine, others lirycal Tout Doucement A Marghera, sometimes serious Virtù Appassite, others realistic Ich Mag F. M., others of fantasy) that this is the only way trough which we can feed true individual musical meanings. In those sound and music meanings the individual creative freedom is the condition for the creative freedom for the whole group.Finally Armi e Bagagli is for all those who dream of a music that can “sign the time, that isn’t all day long seated in a museum, that comes to the surface, that is fluid, unpredictable, erratic, contradictory, stressful. A music who can help old ladies to cross the road” (Claes Oldenburg)

Pasquale Santoli

To the above, almost ruffled, liner notes I only want to add a brief annotation.For this important Italian musicians the opportunity to meet, perhaps for the first time, at an almost official date as a Radio Broadcast/Concert/Album can be seen today as a seminal and starting point for the birth of that “marvellous dream became true” called Italian Instabile Orchestra.Not only this date has been important among the others (before and after) along the eighties: the founding from Andrea Centazzo of the Mitteleuropa orchestra (in 1980), the Bruno Tommaso tentet for “Dodici variazioni su un tema di Jerome Kern”, and than the scoring for the Rava’s “Carmen”, and then the DOM orchestra and the Gaslini’s Solar Big Band.Other recordings that document the meetings between jazzmen from the same “creative” area that were later to join the Instabile are: Mazzon/Schiano – Gospel, Schiaffini/Iannaccone/Colombo - Pezzo e Altro Pezzo, Schiano/Bellatalla/Liguori – Concerto della Statale.In the eighties: Italian Art Quartet (Rusconi, Mazzon, Geremia, Tommaso) Discretamente il fascino…, Liguori/Schiano/Liguori/Mazzon – Effetti Larsen …and obviously the one posted here.

"James Newton and myself are interested in bringing to light some of Ellington's obscure extended works, while at the same time realizing Billy Strayhorn's influence on Ellington and unveiling the uniqueness of their collaboration" David Murray (http://www.festwochen.de/jazzfest/2002/archiv/jazzfest98.html)

I am in debt to LYM for a copy of the recording.

The first indication of Murray's interest in Ellington in the former's recordings came when Come Sunday appeared on one of the the saxophonist's solo albums, Conceptual Saxophone, in 1978. Given Murray's gospel background the choice may have been connected to the opportunity that the theme gave to Murray to explore his interest in the ecstatic.

There are, though, indications that Murray's interest in Ellington preceded this recording, and goes someway back into Murray's musical origins. Murray grew up in California, and studied on Stanley Crouch’s Black Studies programme at Pomono College and, according to Brian Case's sleeve notes to Conceptual Saxophone, Murray originally came to New York on a research trip for a thesis on Jazz saxophone. According to an interview in the Washington Post with Hollie I West he says specifically the paper was on changes in Saxophone playing since 1959. Case’s sleeve notes also cite Murray’s interest in Paul Gonsalves – Ellington’s long time tenor player – as an influence, and Gonsalves would certainly have been one of the key players in influencing post-1959 players. Many of Murray's later works signaled an interest in Gonsalves, Murray even gave a composition on his 1991 big band recording the title 'Paul Gonsalves'.

Murray went on to record 13 Ellington and seven Billy Strayhorn compositions with his own bands or the WSQ, and many more pieces from the Ellington band book. 'In A Sentimental Mood' gets four outings with different bands. Gary Giddins has suggested other Gonsalves-inspired thinking beyond the debt in muscular tone, when he notes that Murray's solo on Ellington's 'Take the Coltrane' is 27 choruses long, the same length as Gonsalves' solo insertion in the famous Newport performance of 'Diminuendo and Cresendo in Blue'.

Murray also seems to owe a debt to Ellington in his bag band work. Although large ensembles had been a key feature of the California new jazz scene in the early 1970s, and many of Murray's earliest New York appearances were in large bands, his big band recordings always seem (to me at least) to have much of the majesty of Ellington's classic performances.

In this context it's not surprising that Murray would get round to a detailed investigation of the Ellington oeuvre. And this is it: 'The Obscure Works of Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn'

I'm not sure why Murray titled the whole performance 'The Obscure Works' because most of the compositions will be well known to Ellington fans, and a number have standard status. This project has clearly been in development for some time, and Murray used the basic idea many times. Giddins refers to a performance of the project in 1997 in Paris with big band plus string orchestra. He also suggested that the concert was recorded, edited and released in 1998, but I haven't been able to track down a copy, let alone another mention of the record. Giddins doesn't give a recording label, like he does for every record release in the book, so I'm even less sure how to find it (if it exists). There is clearly a recording, though because Giddins discusses it over several pages of the book. The band and set seem to be very similar as this one.

A scaled down version of this group played the North Sea Jazz Festival in July 1999 consisting of Murray with, Ragin, Harris, Newton, Purcell, Bluiett, Ruiz, Shahid and Cyrille and possibly one other (http://johnjazz.homestead.com/davidmurray.html).

I would be very interested to find out any further information, hear other performances of the project, and track down a copy of the record Giddins mentions.

In solidarity, and hoping that sotise will return, after all he invited me to join this blog, here's my contribution for today:

The Struggle ContinuesDewey Redman | ECM Records (2007)

By Budd Kopman

Dewey Redman, who died September 2, 2006 at the age of 75, will be best remembered for his work with Ornette Coleman from 1967-1974 and Keith Jarrett's "American" quartet in the mid-1970s, with an overall reputation leaning towards the freer side of jazz expression.

The Struggle Continues, recorded in 1982, is making its first appearance on CD and is quite welcome. The overall style is on the straight-ahead side, but rather than merely play changes using the well-known language of bop, hard bop and post bop, chances are taken — the mark of the creative artist. For Redman, there is no need to play outside of the boundaries of the music at hand. Indeed, his playing on one of his last recordings, alto saxophonist Francois Carrier's freely improvised Open Spaces (Spool, 2006), is exactly what is needed, but at the other end of the spectrum.

Redman's supporting band is very sharp, featuring bassist Mark Helias, who plays aggressively with a full, deep sound, while maintaining a strong connection to drummer Ed Blackwell and pianist Charles Eubanks. They sound like a band and not merely a collection of good players brought together for a recording session.

Redman wrote all the compositions except the last, "Dewey Square," which is by Charlie Parker, and each shows a different side of his personality within the more structured confines of the mainstream. However, because Redman is such an original artist, The Struggle Continues is anything but a pure straight-ahead session as every note becomes personalized and hence recognizable as coming from him.

"Thren" starts out clearly enough with its bebop-ish theme. However, over the straight drumming and walking bass, Redman plays with rhythmic freedom, while never losing touch with Helias and Blackman. Eubank's answering solo takes up the challenge and things get hot. Once it gets going, "Love Is" initially sounds like a straightforward jazz ballad, except that the meter refuses to be in 3 or in 4, making for a lovely effect underneath Redman's expressive playing.

"Turn Over Baby" is a real low-down, slinky, deep bluesy piece that makes you realize that Redman can do that convincingly too, but this and "Joie De Vivre," a delightful light swinger, act as an aural cleanser for "Combinations." Here, the free Redman surfaces, as he and the band play an intense, harmonically static, racing track that is just long enough to show that Redman can do this too, without losing the album's balance.

The set ends with "Dewey Square," and Redman is again himself, playing rhythmically free lines against the Parker changes. The Struggle Continues presents an artist who is a true original, putting his stamp on every note played. Redman and the band are clearly having fun, playing accessible music of the highest quality.

24 January 2009

Official Poster Picture for "Art & All That Jazz" 2005. "Jazz Sax Player" by Joe Holiday[http://www.stlucieartleague.com/artjazzshow2005.htm]

I am worried that sotisie's and Boromir's departure, and some of the comments on the blog which stray into areas outside the topic of the posts, will lead to its demise. It is marvelous that you have joined us Bill, and it worries me that you are wondering whether you should post some new music. Personally I'd like to see if we can keep it going through these difficult times, to carry on the work sotisie and Boromir started, and to show that an interest in exploring new musical sounds is the most important thing here.

May I propose a way ahead?

Let each of the contributors post something over the next few days to refocus attension.If we leave comments unmoderated, let each person who comments keep the discussion to the music that is being posted. If others have other things to say, we should let them stand, but we should not respond; keeping our contributions to the subject of great music. As any musician will tell you: an unresponsive audience is a pretty poor one. If we're talking about music, and others want to talk about other things, they will need to find a new venue.

Finally, if others would like to join the music posters, please do get in touch. This is a community for music lovers, everyone is welcome. I know that over the years the comments page has featured thanks to the people who made the effort to post music and explanations of why the music matters to them; but the vast amount of the comments go to praise the musicians who made it. Those who share music from their collection here attend these musican's concerts, buy their records, and promote their music to others. Most of the music that you can download through this blog is currently unavailable in commercial release. We share the music and all these experiences. We welcome your contributions to the community. When you make comments about the music, and respect others in the community, you make both stronger. Now that's worth working for, I think.

I'm writing up something on a David Murray concert of Duke Ellington music, which I'll try and get up this weekend.

I just got here, more or less and am shocked. At first I misunderstood that Sotise had died (glad to see I was wrong). I don't know you folks personally or even in the blogosphere really so I am a bit at a loss as to what to think of all this. I was getting my Maarten Altonen ready but now feel less inclined to go on with it as some key figures are leaving.I think part of the problem is certainly the anonymity of the net (sort of like being in a car, shielded from everyone you can feel untouchable hence act like an asshole). I would've hoped a common love and respect of the music had attracted a different caliber of person. Maybe I was naieve.I'm sorry to see you (two) go as I just started my own blog though I too will probably weary of it as well. I notice the same tendency- namely- hit and run. One, two comments, 80 downloads. Maybe there's just so much to download people are in a rush to grab the next free album.... makes me wonder how much they really LISTEN to the music.I am sorry to see such luminaries go. I am sorry to see such nastiness in evidence as well. As a paramedic of 20+ years I have seen the worst of people (and also the best from time to time) but I didn't expect it here.I wish all who are departing well. I hope to see your moniker in a comment section from time to time.Be well.

Bill

21 January 2009

A special post from me this time. The most thrilling concert experience for me last year was 4 hours of John Zorn's ensembles, only broken up by short intermissions. He had brought over from New York the Dreamers, Essential Cinema and Electric Masada which as you may know are basically composed of the same people. The middle set was given to the showing of four short movies with the band providing the live soundtrack, playing in pitch darkness, only illuminated by the light from the screen.

This is a video clip, recorded by my son, using the video camera on the Nokia N958gb cell phone. Of course, the clip may not be up to professional standards, but it will give you a sense of having been there, even if it's only watched on a computer screen. It looks like I may have missed the beginning, but most of it is certainly there.

As for the movie "Rose Hobart": It was made by Joseph Cornell in 1936 and it's a montage from a longer Hollywood "exotica" movie called "East of Borneo" and consisting of scenes with the actress Rose Hobart (hence the title), largely freed of whatever context or plot there was, which gives it a somewhat strange, abtract, poetic quality.

This movie was the first of the four showed and was followed by Wallace Berman 'Aleph', Harry Smith 'Oz: the Tin Woodman's Dream' og Maya Deren 'Ritual in transfigured time'. The second, a flickery, hyper-rapid imagery set to a free jazz blow-out soundtrack by Zorn was followed by Smith and Deren, both returning to the dreamy floating visions of the first.